James Brown was working in sales and marketing a couple years ago when he noticed an American Heart Association training center was across the hall.

Brown did some research and found out that 1,000 people a day experience cardiac arrest and 90 percent of victims don’t get treatment in time.

“I decided I’m going to do something about it,” Brown said.

Brown, who is 1st Vice-President of the Lake Balboa Neighborhood Council and chairman of its Public Safety Committee and co-chair of LAPD West Valley Division’s Community-Police Advisory Board, became a certified trainer in cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

People use dummies during a CPR AED training session for school staff at Miller Career School in Reseda, Friday, June 8, 2017. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Instructors James Brown during a CPR AED training session for school staff at Miller Career School in Reseda, Friday, June 8, 2017 (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

People use manikins during a CPR AED training session for school staff at Miller Career School in Reseda, Friday, June 8, 2017. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Instructor James Brown during a CPR AED training session for school staff at Miller Career School in Reseda, Friday, June 8, 2017. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Instructor James Brown during a CPR AED training session for school staff at Miller Career School in Reseda, Friday, June 8, 2017. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Instructor Ryan Stevens, GM Training Solutions, demonstrates how to do CPR during a CPR AED training session for school staff at Miller Career School in Reseda, Friday, June 8, 2017 (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Bette Kindred practices sheets compressions during a CPR AED training session for school staff at Miller Career School in Reseda, Friday, June 8, 2017. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

People use manikins during a CPR AED training session for school staff at Miller Career School in Reseda, Friday, June 8, 2017. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Christopher Soler practices chest compressions as Mauricio Pimentel holds a practice AED device during a CPR AED training session for school staff at Miller Career School in Reseda, Friday, June 8, 2017. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

He convinced Ryan Stevens, general manager of Training Solutions, to offer free training sessions to the public and charge just $25 to those who need to be certified. Typically, it costs $70 to $100 to be certified, Brown said.

“The hardest thing for us to do is to convince people that this is a priority, so to have somebody like James, who had no skin in the game at all and say we should do this, it was amazing,” Stevens said.

To date, Brown has trained about 1,800 people. On the third Saturday of each month, Training Solutions offers free training sessions to the public at the Van Nuys Flyaway from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The next session is July 21.

“It’s been heartwarming, it’s been very rewarding and it helps spread the word about how critical it is to learn this skill,” Brown said.

On Friday, about 70 special education assistants and staff of Miller Career and Transition Center in Reseda completed the three-hour training session. The school serves 18 to 22-year-old students who are moderately to severely intellectually disabled. Special education assistants are required to be certified because sometimes they are with students in the community. The school trains the students for careers in fields like culinary arts, graphic arts, landscaping, and office work.

Brown began by asking the staffers why people are reluctant to perform 911.

Fear of hurting someone, fear of being sued and fear of transmitting diseases were some of the answers they called out.

Brown told them about the state’s Good Samaritan Law that protects someone from being held liable if the victim is injured or dies after administering CPR.

“The worst thing you can do is do nothing,” he said.

When someone’s heart has stopped, they need treatment within six minutes in order to be saved. Response times for paramedics are typically nine to 12 minutes, Brown said.

“All you’re doing is buying time for the paramedics to get there,” he said.

If you see someone on the ground unresponsive:

Make sure the scene is safe.

Yell for help.

Call 911

Tap person and ask if they are OK.

Check to see if their chest is rising and falling. If they are not breathing, begin chest compressions.

Press hard, press deep and move quickly, Stevens said.

The ideal rate of compressions is 100 compressions a minute. If another is person is in the area, ask them to stay with you so they can help you with compressions.

If a child victim is unresponsive, begin compressions before calling 911.

To prevent airborne illness, the American Health Association advises people to not perform rescue breathing on strangers.

The staff also learned how to use automated external defibrillators known as AEDs.

When a defibrillator is used the victim has an 87 percent chance of survival, Brown said. Many schools and government buildings are equipped with defibrillators.

“We can turn these dead people back into living, breathing people,” Stevens said.

They practiced doing compressions and using the AED on dummies.

“It wasn’t easy. I thought I was next,” Christopher Soler, a special education assistant, said. “It’s really tough to do CPR it’s not a joke.”

Soler said he’s never had to perform CPR, but he did help stop a student at another school from choking on pizza.

“I was so thankful to God. It was neat being able to save him,” Soler said.

Brown also advocated for AB 1217, authored by state Assemblyman Freddie Rodriguez (D-Pomona), a new law that goes into effect in the next school year that requires all high school students to take a compression-only CPR class in order to graduate. And he was able to convince the L.A. Unified School Board and L.A. City Council to voice their support of the bill.

“We have found grants and other monies that will guarantee our ability to certainly make this new class happen districtwide in all high schools,” L.A. Unified spokeswoman Ellen Morgan said.

He plans to do more trainings in Pacoima, Sun Valley, Panorama City and Reseda. The LAPD has donated 35 headsets to translate the training into Spanish.

Sarah Favot is an award-winning Los Angeles-based freelance writer. Most recently she was a data and investigative reporter at L.A. School Report, a non-profit education news website. Prior to that she was a staff writer for the L.A. Daily News covering county government. She is Vice President of the Los Angeles Chapter of The Society of Professional Journalists.